Ursula. It's a paranormal romance short story of about 5000 words. It's what I would call a sweet love story, with naughty bits. Not sweet as in the romance genre definition, as the story definitely doesn't stop at the bedroom door, but sweet as in it's the interplay between the characters that's important, not the sex scene. I aim for a 3-4 out of 5 heat level for my romance stories. If anyone disagrees that I'm hitting that mark, perhaps they'd tell me?

Anything by JR Ward! Well, if I had to choose one of hers, it'd be Lover Unbound. Vishous is a complicated character, but but vulnerable all the same.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. It's beautifully written, and any book that starts ' ... It did not end well' has got to be intriguing!
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. The whole Outlander series is lovely, but Voyager, where Claire reunites with Jamie, is exquisite.
White Gold Wielder by Stephen Donaldson. The Thomas Covenant series is rich and dramatic, and I find I need to read it with a dictionary to hand. A more challenging read than some, for me, so very enjoyable in its own way.
Nation by Terry Pratchett. Readable on several different levels depending on the age of the reader.

Paranormal romance (there's a surprise), hard sci-fi (the more techhie the better), and I do like to laugh so some light stuff too.

A Kindle. I carry it with me around with me like it's surgically implanted. If I'm upstairs, it is too, if I'm downstairs, well you get the idea.

Amazon's Kindle Select has been good for me. Being able to schedule free days has been great to generate interest in the stories, with the hope that if readers like the free one, they may buy some of the others.

Cluttered. I wish it wasn't. But my mind is clear. Does that help?

I count myself very lucky. My mum and dad were married for the whole of my life, until we lost Mum 2 years ago. Dad always worked, Mum was always there when I and my two younger sisters came home from school. Very traditional. We lived in the same house for over 20 years while I was growing up, so it felt really stable. I think what influenced me to start writing was Mum's death. Since then I've felt the need to express myself, and share it in case it resonates with others. Perhaps until then, the need wasn't there.

I've always lived in my head, making stuff up! But it's only in the last year or so that the stuff has been demanding to come out and be written down. I know that isn't very long, but I feel you can improve best by doing.

I have had some short stories published by Horrified Press, and I thank them very much for giving me the confidence to try and publish on my own. But I like to control stuff, my way or no way! So doing it all myself was the best fit for me.

Enormously! I started out with just one sales platform, and that was great. But I soon wanted to spread my wings and get my name known a bit more widely than that. And Smashwords seems like a really good way of doing so.

Starting with a blank sheet of paper and just pouring words onto it. I'm always amazed when it comes out looking half decent. Couple that with editing, tweaking, proof reading, tweaking again, and repeating that (almost endlessly) and hopefully at the end the result is as good as it can be, at least for the stage that I'm at in my writing journey.

They're important because they validate what I'm doing. I think it's important to remember who you're writing for - yourself of course, but once you put yourself out there, I think you owe it to people to make what you produce the very best that you can.

Several things. Bodyshifters 2 - more sizzling tales of paranormal romance, the sequel to Born in The USA, and the start of a new series, called Angels Above and Below.